Some labels should stand out...

[kaste]

Initially, I thought just theme and syntax colors should stand out. Sparkle?

For ref

color scheme  background-image: linear-gradient(120deg, #d4fc79 0%, #96e6a1 100%);
theme         background-image: linear-gradient(to left, #fbe864 0%, #fece40 100%);

Then I also added the actual syntax defs:

[braver]

Maybe all 6 that were picked to get highlighted below the search field should get some kind of sparkle ✨

[michaelblyons]

The gradients are fun, but maybe more fun than I like to have. 😜

I propose:

• Making the platform labels all the same style (and possibly removing them from the homepage filter suggestions).
• Distributing colors among some other significant tags.
  • Maybe theme and color scheme can be different shades of the same color? Dark blue v. light blue?
  • Same for auto-complete, completions, and snippets? Maybe even the same shade for these?
  • Language syntax should be unique.

[kaste]

That wasn't the idea. The idea was not to color code something or to recreate the Christmas tree. Mostly everything is monochrome and then we add some sparkle. Even coloring just lang syntax makes it inharmonic as we have immediately too much coloring on the whole page.

I identified theme plus scheme because they literally add color to our editor. (They are also very popular in general, and basically things people like to try out; there is no buy-in cost for them.) The gradient comes from the observation that packages often have both labels, and then the gradients -- because they have a direction -- were meant to visually connect the two labels.

Language tags maybe deserve their trademark icon, usually the same as their file extension icon. So Python would get the Python icon in front etc.

We can also just highlight the labels if we filter by them or if we hover of them in the search form....

That being said, just removing the platform colors looks like that

Maybe that's sad, or minimalistic, or we just need a moment to adjust to that.

[michaelblyons]

That being said, just removing the platform colors looks like that

Yes, and Braver said the same over here:

Honestly, the only reason they're there at all is to add a little color. I think visually it needs something like that, it's a sea of grey otherwise. Even though they're essentially useless. But that's not what this PR is about and I'd like to leave that discussion out of scope.

And I agree with both of you on this. What I am saying is that if other things get color, then we don't need to keep the platform colors¹ because the "sea of grey" problem is no longer a motivating factor for keeping them like that.

The gradient comes from the observation that packages often have both labels, and then the gradients -- because they have a direction -- were meant to visually connect the two labels.

I did not make this connection at all from the gradient choice. But no worries. It's interesting that both of us were trying to link them: you with the gradient and me with the color family.

Footnotes

1. Or maybe the platforms in a prominent place at all. Maybe some people start from the "What works on my system?" question, but I have found that almost all packages I have been interested in work everywhere. ↩

[kaste]

Do we have a svg-icon to language identifier map somewhere? Just to see it; maybe it's just a couple of minutes to make it plus a few screenshots. The emoji thing today literally took 15 minutes. 🙇

[michaelblyons]

Maybe something like this? https://github.com/braver/FileIcons/tree/master/build/assets or a slightly longer list at https://github.com/SublimeText/AFileIcon/tree/master/icons/svg

[kaste]

Hm...

[michaelblyons]

I can't deny that's cute. 🙂

You may want to drop some of the languages if this ships. (Or may not. 🤷) Tags like diff or todo might indicate a language, but they might just indicate functionality. And you just make a choice to use or not use the icon for each one. The ai icon in AFileIcon is for Adobe Illustrator, but we all know what that tag means, now. 😅

[kaste]

See draft implementation at #251 I use AFileIcon over there and it doesn't look as good as I hoped. These icons are all monochrome.

[FichteFoll]

Imo the 6 labels below the search input are the most important ones that depict what a package is providing, so I like the idea of highlighting them in some form. However, I do not necessarily agree that they should all have an individual color. Instead, they could just all be made a bit more prominent by adding a blue-ish outline to them (to not conflict with the synthetic ST2, ST3, MIA labels).

[braver]

With the colored icons now in place, I would say it's colorful enough and syntax packages stand out in a good way. It's not super necessary to highlight color scheme, theme, LSP or listing packages: almost all of them have the type in the name (Theme - Timeless, LSP-copilot, SublimeLinter-php, etc.). It would just become a colorful Christmas tree at that point, and although seasonal right now, not very practical. I'd vote to "close as completed".